


Today and Every Day

by LittleLostPieces



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:02:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1548308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLostPieces/pseuds/LittleLostPieces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Harry proposed, and one time Louis definitively said yes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Today and Every Day

**Author's Note:**

> Two things occurred to me recently: 1.) I've written a lot angst lately and I'm tired of it for the moment, and 2.) I've never written a 5 Times fic. So I challenged myself to do a fluffy 5 Times, and this is what happened.
> 
> Title from Train's _Marry Me_ , because ~original.

**I. _The X Factor_ , 2010**

“And I’d marry you, Harry,” Louis had said, in front of the other lads and a cameraman and the whole of the bloody UK soon enough. 

Just like that, he’d said it like it was nothing at all. Well, he’d said it like it was a joke, hastily tacking on a, “because it rhymes,” to be quirky and weird and _Louis_. Obviously he hadn’t meant it, if for no other reason than they’re children. Harry is only sixteen. Louis isn’t much better off at eighteen. There is absolutely no bleeding reason for Louis’ words to feel like something of a promise. 

Everything else aside, they’ve only known each other for a few fucking weeks. 

Except, does that really even matter at this point? As he makes his way back to their room, one towel wrapped around his waist and another wrapped around his hair, Harry wonders if marriage is so different than what they’re doing now. Of course, it _is_ different, he’s not completely mad, but _how different?_ is the question now stuck in Harry’s head.

They were joined together in front of a crowd of witnesses, after all. They’ve already promised that they’ll be together forever, for better (winning the show) or worse (er, not winning). The entire band’s talked about buying flats close to one another, but he and Louis have spent hours discussing all of the unnecessary things they’ll buy for the flat they’ll share, the fact that they’ll live together seemed a foregone conclusion from the beginning.. Well, Louis has talked about buying things. Harry mostly listens and tries to put a practical spin on them, as practical as a sixteen-year-old can be about adult things.

The point is that they’ve already committed themselves to one another, all of them. 

So it doesn’t seem strange to Harry, later that night as he and Louis are pressed side-by-side in Harry’s bunk, to ask, “Did you mean it?”

“Yes,” Louis whispers in return, blinking a bit at the abrupt interruption to the story he’d been telling a second ago. “Did I mean what?”

Harry’s throat is dry when he swallows, nerves beating a wild rhythm against his ribs. “That you’d. That you’d marry me. If you could, I mean. Would you?”

Louis’ eyebrow quirks in the sliver of moonlight spilling onto them from the side of the curtains. “Are you proposing to me, Harry Styles?”

“And what if I am?” he asks, keeping his voice playful, though he fears it might fall short of the mark.

Louis considers it far more seriously than Harry expects him to and looks uncharacteristically serious when he says, “Then I would say yes, I think.”

Though he does his best to keep his cool, Harry feels as though Louis has just sucked all the air from his chest. He would marry Harry if Harry was asking. Harry chooses to believe that they both know he is, that it’s never been hypothetical with them, not even at the very start.

It helps him sleep in a house that isn’t his home, in a world that doesn’t exist outside these walls. It stabilizes him in a way that nothing else in this entire experience has.

 **II. Post-Brits, 2012**

They’re in a black van, the windows tinted to the outside world, and idling in a McDonald's drive-thru. Someone from their management team is taking orders in the front, jotting furiously to decipher what Liam and Niall are both ordering at the same time. Harry honestly couldn’t care less about cheeseburgers at the moment, tucked in safely to Louis’ side in the very back seat. Zayn is right in front of them, occasionally flashing something on his phone toward Louis for consideration or approval, but Harry isn’t worried about him right now, either.

It’s unbelievable, quite literally, that there are red, white, and blue statues out there with their bloody names on them. There was some speculation in the lead-up to tonight’s ceremony, seeing as the British Single award was fan-voted, but it was still ridiculous to think that they - a baby band with only one album barely under their collective belt - would beat out the likes of Adele and Ed Sheeran for a fucking Brit award.

Though he’s certain flying is still impossible for humans, Harry would like to run up to the roof of some building and taking a running leap off of the edge. It feels like he’d be able to do it, fly on the sheer force of his excitement alone. Not even gravity could squash his joy right now, he doesn’t think. 

When he tells Louis as much, Louis just smiles and sings, “And nobody in all of Oz, no wizard that there is or was, is ever gonna bring me down,” softly against Harry’s ear, pressing a gentle kiss to his jaw as punctuation.

Maybe Harry is a bit more drunk than he thought, but he could listen to Louis sing forever, even if he doesn’t know what the hell song he’s singing right now. 

“That should be our wedding song,” Harry declares, louder than he intended if the way Zayn laughs is an indication. “I don’t know what it is,” he adds in a staged whisper, twisting enough to peer up at Louis through the mass of fringe swooping into his eyes at the moment, “but you should sing it for me in front of our mums and everybody.”

“ _Defying Gravity_?” Louis asks, chuckling as his fingers dance over Harry’s shoulder. “You are a true romantic, Harry.”

Harry may preen a little. “Thank you.”

“But, I mean, maybe we should wait until you’re not pissed off your ass to plan this fairy tale Wizard of Oz wedding, hm?”

“Who said anything about the Wizard of Oz?” Harry asks, feeling a bit dizzy now that they’re moving toward the pick-up window. 

Rather than attempting to explain, Louis just shakes his head, kisses the top of Harry’s head again, and returns his attention to Zayn’s phone.

It’s unacceptable, Harry thinks. Drunk or not, he’s just won a Brit award and Louis should be paying attention to him. Actually, Brit award or not, no matter the circumstance, Louis should still be paying attention to him. 

He thought, at some point, he would feel less desperate for this. He was sure that sharing a flat and working together, spending every moment of every day together, was going to diminish some of this clawing want, this _need_ to have just a bit more of Louis, more than everything, but it hasn’t. He’s beginning to wonder if anything could.

“But you would, though, right?” he asks suddenly.

Louis blinks distractedly. “Would what, love?” he asks, barely looking over his shoulder to clue himself in to what Harry is talking about now.

“Sing at our wedding, if I asked you to?”

If he was looking for a way to capture Louis’ attention, Harry has found it. Sinking back into the seat and winding his arm around Harry’s shoulder again, he says, “I supposed that would depend on how you ask me. And I suppose you’d have to ask me to marry you first,” he teases.

He already has, Harry wants to remind him, but he only rolls his eyes and says, “Will you marry me and sing at our wedding?”

“D’you hear that, Zayn?” Louis asks, kicking the seat until Zayn turns to him with an eyebrow raised. “I’ve won a Brit and a marriage proposal from Harry fucking Styles all in the same night.”

“Yeah, you’re one lucky lad, Lou,” Zayn intones, turning back around as quickly as he faced them.

When Louis looks back at Harry, when he smiles and carefully pushes Harry’s hair from his face with one hand, Harry thinks he might not have to jump off a building. He might just float right off the ground.

“I _am_ lucky,” Louis says, catching Harry’s chin with his finger and tilting his face. 

It’s as much a yes as Harry is going to get right now, drunk and too silly to be taken seriously but, nonetheless, he’ll take the kiss and assume it means the same.

**III. Post-MSG, 2012**

Before tonight, Harry would have said that there was no way on Earth that one human being could survive feeling a hundred different emotions in a span of approximately six hours. Before tonight, he’d have thought loads of things to be impossible. Of course, before tonight, he’d not played a sold-out show at Madison fucking Square Garden. 

The entire weekend has been an overwhelming roller coaster, from crazy public appearances and fan meetings to quiet moments with his family to the concert bigger than any eighteen-year-old has the right to experience, and Harry has felt all of it in his bones. He’s been carried away on the thrill of adrenaline for about seventy-two straight hours and he knows, as deeply as he’s known anything this weekend, that it has to end. No one can survive this kind of emotional overload forever.

He’s just hoping to make it back to his room before he collapses at this point.

He can hear the giggles behind the door before he inserts the card. When it clicks, Harry spares a quick wave to his security and then shoulders his way into the room, another emotion swelling up and crashing like a wave in his chest at the sight that greets him on the bed.

Louis is lying in the center of an enormous Tomlinson puppy pile, his mum and sisters are stretched out beside and around him while they talk over each other and squeal each time someone’s fingers - usually Louis’ - dig into their sides for an affectionate tickle. 

The dark circles are beginning to show under his eyes, but Harry isn’t sure he’s ever seen Louis looking happier. In some respects, it’s been a trying weekend, attempting to keep their heads above rumor waters and fighting to stay in the moment instead of being dragged under the ever-changing tides. It’s not new or, in any way, unusual for them, but everything has been amplified here, under this incredibly powerful microscope.

“Alright, you monsters,” Louis finally says with a grunt, rolling into his mother and nearly knocking her off the bed in an attempt to free himself from the sea of blond hair and laughter. “It’s way past bed times, I think.”

The twins roll their eyes simultaneously, an unpracticed act that makes Harry’s heart squeeze in his chest. 

He wants twins someday, maybe triplets even. He wants a million babies with Louis’ eyes and maybe his own curls. Hell, he doesn’t care if they don’t look anything like himself or Louis. He just wants that overprotective, so-fond-he-could-blind-someone-with-it look on Louis’ face when he’s watching over their own babies someday. Harry doesn’t think that’s too much to ask really.

“Mummy said we don’t have bed times this week!” 

Harry can’t help laughing, holding his arm out for Jay as she slips into his hug and continues to watch her girls cuddle around her baby boy on the bed, a giant sea of tangled movement that never seems to stop.

“Maybe I wasn’t talking about you,” Louis says in a haughty tone, the end of the sentence carried away on a yawn. “I’m not a young man anymore, love. Need to rest my weary bones sometimes, don’t I?” When they all groan, as though Louis is the most ridiculous person on the planet, even as they’re all beginning to climb off of the bed, Louis mimics the sound louder than any of them. “I’ve just played Madison Square Garden, don’t know if you noticed, and I’m knackered. My apologies,” he says in the tone of an absolute diva. 

Laughing, Harry hugs Jay closer to his side, jumping a bit when she pinches him. “What was that for?”

Her eyes are dancing with amusement and excitement, maybe highlighted by a few tears, when she shrugs. “Love you an awful lot, H,” she whispers conspiratorially.

If his eyes are a bit watery, it’s only because exhaustion is setting in. That’s what Harry will tell anyone who asks. It’s certainly not because this family, Louis’ family, feels more and more like his own every time they’re all together in one place these days.

“Love you, too,” he assures her, pressing a kiss to her head and releasing her in time to catch the first flying eight-year-old who launches herself at his legs.

While Louis walks his family back to their room, Harry showers, knowing that it will take another half hour for Louis to say goodnight to the girls he doesn’t see nearly enough anymore. After, he smoothes out the bed and turns down the covers. He sets his iPod in the dock and fills the room with a soft, acoustic album that is sure to lull them to sleep immediately. 

By the time Louis returns, Harry is tucked into the bed, sheets riding low on his naked hips, scrolling through his Twitter feed and trying not to cry. He’s just tired. It’s just been an overwhelming few days. He’s just emotional. It’s alright. He’s not ashamed.

“My sister’s mates kept texting her to tell her how fit you looked tonight,” Louis grumbles, tucking himself into the bed as Harry sets his phone aside. “I could tell every time she got another one because her nose kept crinkling and she kept saying ‘gross’ each time.”

Harry laughs as he reaches for the light, immersing the room in darkness before he burrows into Louis’ side and rests his head on Louis’ bare chest. “What a confidence boost,” he finally says, impossible sleepiness taking over as though his body knows it’s safe to rest now.

“Must be hard, hm?” Louis asks, fingers traipsing up and down Harry’s back as his voice begins to drift. “Having one girl in all the land who doesn’t fancy your ridiculous curls.”

“She used to,” Harry remembers, because it used to bother Louis that his sister fancied Harry most of all. 

Louis hums against Harry’s forehead, his voice vibrating and his breath warm. “That was before,” he says. 

“Before what?” Harry asks, the words drifting in the soft, limited space between them now.

“Before you were family.”

They always refer to each other as family, all of them, but it sounds different this time, more intimate. “We _are_ family,” Harry mutters. “Should make it official.”

“Yeah,” Louis breathes, though Harry isn’t certain either of them are even coherent enough to understand their own words at the moment. “Definitely should do.”

**IV. Sweden, 2013**

It’s been said, more often than not by Harry himself, that he can get a bit lost in his own head at times. He doesn’t exactly notice until it’s happened, until he’s so consumed with thoughts of then and now and later that he can’t dig his way out again.

To be fair, he doesn’t think it’s all his own fault this time. Sitting around the campfire, waxing philosophical about their careers to this point and their future endeavors was probably not the best way to keep Harry’s head in the moment.

He doesn’t want to be scared, shouldn’t be actually. They’ve been unpredictably successful - no one else in the history of reality telly has ever found the kind of global success that they have - and Harry has been incredibly smart with his money, especially for someone his age. He’s got enough invested and hoarded away that he’ll be fine for the rest of his life, no matter how old he is when this train comes to a stop.

He knows full well that boy band shelf lives are short, that they’re smart to talk about what happens next, where they go after this. There will be an after because there has to be. They can’t be this huge forever; it just doesn’t work like that. Harry’s not an idiot. He knows all of those things.

He just wishes that the others didn’t make it sound like the _band_ has to stop when the fame does. Maybe that’s not what they mean, that they’ll get married and have kids and build futures that have nothing to do with this band at all, when they say ‘after,’ but it’s all Harry can think right now. Sure, there are days when he needs a break from all of them, when he needs to fly to Los Angeles or something and just clear his head, but he can’t imagine needing a _break_. 

This is all he’s ever known, all any of them have known really, and he can’t understand how they look at the prospect of something else and get excited, how they don’t dread it like inevitable death of an ill loved one.

Even when Louis talks about settling down, when he looks Harry directly in the eye and talks about building a life after the madness, Harry can’t help the clawing fear. Of course he wants a life with Louis, to be with him forever, to build a family and a home and a future that is only theirs, but he’s nineteen fucking years old. Most of his mates have barely started uni, are only beginning to consider careers after school, and Harry is already thinking about being forced into retirement.

He’s worked himself into a worried frenzy by the time Louis climbs into their tent, smelling of an entirely different kind of smoke than Harry’s campfire and ash scent. Harry’s lip is bitten raw and he’s just barely managing to stave off tears, having convinced himself that he’s never going to see any of his bandmates again.

“You’re still awake,” Louis says, his eyebrows lifting a bit as he shifts and wiggles his way into the sleeping bag beside Harry. “Hey,” he adds when Harry barely manages a smile, his nose nudging along Harry’s jawline because he’s always snuggly when he’s stoned. “What’s this, then? Why’s my boy all tangled up, hm?”

He hates the way his voice quivers when he says, “Just, like, thinking.”

“Oh, well I’ve warned you about that, haven’t I?” Louis teases, voice whispered soft against Harry’s ear as his hand traces a path down Harry’s chest. “Listen,” he instructed, fingers wiggling under the three shirts Harry is wearing to ward off the chill of the night. “D’you hear that?”

There’s a stillness, silence save for the nature surrounding their hideaway at the moment and the occasional cackling giggles of Liam and Niall in a tent a few meters away, but Harry’s thoughts have been drowning most of it out for the better part of an hour now. 

“No screams. No fucking suits rambling on. No nosey journos askin’ us questions we don’t want to answer. No phones. No distractions here, babe. No need to worry that pretty little lip, is there? It’s just us here, isn’t it?”

Harry wants to argue that he likes the screams, wants to have people telling him where he’s supposed to be next, asking him questions, being interested in him. He likes being relevant. He doesn’t know how not to be anymore. He wants to tell Louis how much it scares him, make him see why it’s hard to process, but Louis won’t understand. Louis knows how to plan for the future but live in the moment, he knows how to do the very thing Harry wishes he could.

“Harry,” Louis mutters against his ear, his fingers working their way under both pairs of sweatpants Harry is wearing. “Listen to me, only me, babe. Can you hear me in there?”

The first brush of his fingers against Harry’s cock are electrifying, jolting in a way he never expects but that he finds so familiar. His hips rock forward automatically, whine forcing its way out of the back of his throat unbidden.

“That’s it,” Louis encourages, hitching himself onto an elbow to look down on Harry’s face as his hand works beneath so many layers of cover. “Let it go, love. Whatever it is doesn’t matter, does it? Not what people think, not what they expect from us, not what they want. Nobody else matters, H, not like we do when we’re together. Just us, babe. Just you,” he continues, pressing a firm kiss to Harry’s cheek as he tightens his grip on Harry’s cock, “and me. You here with me, love?”

He must be some kind of magic, Louis must. As intense as the thoughts have been, as insistent and constant and lethal, they fade into nothing as Louis continues to pepper Harry’s face with kisses, his scruff scratching and his lips chasing the sting away, and stroke his cock in an even, almost soothing, rhythm. 

With a groan, he turns his head, captures Louis’ mouth with his own, and sucks hungrily at his tongue. He feels anchored, grounded to this place and this boy, like he hasn’t all night. It’s freezing outside, but he’s perfect in this cocoon Louis’ made for them. 

“There you are,” Louis smiles while Harry is still gasping from their kiss, his heart hammering against his ribs as Louis increases the pressure but not the speed with which he’s rubbing Harry’s cock. “There’s my beautiful boy,” he whispers with another kiss to Harry’s jaw. “Mine, aren’t you?” he asks just before he pulls Harry’s earlobe between his teeth and growls playfully. 

Harry’s sure that his eyes are rolling back now, his back arching as he comes over Louis’ fingers and inside his own pants. 

“That’s a good boy,” Louis encourages, licking the hinge of Harry’s jaw and pressing open-mouthed kisses along the side of his neck. “Fuck, you’re amazing,” he whispers, almost as though he didn’t mean to, and then covers it with another searing press of his lips to Harry’s.

It’s fantastic, any kind of sex with Louis always is, but what throws Harry for a loop is the way Louis reaches for the hot water bottle he must have brought back with him. The flannel wrapped around it is still damp and warm as he peels back Harry’s layers enough to clean his stomach and his tender cock before covering him back up, tucking him in safe and right up against Louis’ chest. Harry doesn’t explain his worries and his thoughts and his fears, but Louis always seems to know anyway.

“I need to,” Harry starts to say when his head has cleared, when he can struggle to sit, when it occurs to him that leaving an orgasm unreciprocated is just plain discourteous.

But Louis stops him by tugging at his hair and pulling back back down to the ground. “You don’t,” he says. 

Harry just rolls his eyes, feeling looser and happier and more relaxed than he has all day. “Don’t be a martyr, Lewis.”

“When have I ever been a martyr, Harold?” Louis teases when Harry meets his eye with a narrowed glare that probably looks as imposing as a puppy with a chew toy. He lifts a hand, runs a finger down Harry’s throat, and lets his eyes drift to Harry’s mouth and then back up to meet his gaze. “That lovely moan of yours took care of me already, thanks.”

And here’s the thing: Harry doesn’t know what the future holds for this band, for him professionally and that terrifies him. But he knows what it holds for him personally, so maybe that’s okay. 

Just to be sure, he says, “You’re gonna be mine forever, yeah? No matter what happens with the band, you’re gonna be my Louis?”

Louis’ smile is a bit hazy around the edges when he says, “Your Louis, huh? I think I like the word ‘husband,’, don’t you?”

With a happy little squeak, Harry wiggles further into Louis’ side and says, “I like ‘spouse.’ Will you be my spouse?”

“You are so quirky,” Louis teases, fingers digging into Harry’s armpit until he squawks loud enough for Niall to shout at both of them to ‘ _shut the fuck up, I’m tryin’ to sleep here!_ ’

It feels like a yes.

**V. Pre- _This Is Us_ press tour, 2013**

Harry is punch drunk. He’s sleep drunk, and maybe a little sun drunk. He’s spent much of the week actually, for real drunk on the mojitos Louis has perfected during their time away together. Mostly, though, he thinks that he’s love drunk. He must be, after spending six uninterrupted days tucked away in their new home together, completely undisturbed in a way they haven’t been for years now.

“Harold!” Louis shouts from the deck of the house.

Harry rolls his eyes, gives the saute pan on the stove a shake, and rises onto his toes to shout back through the open kitchen window. “What?”

“I need something,” Louis hollers back, uninhibited thanks to the solitude they’ve found here.

“What do you need, babe?” he asks, lowering the heat on the veg until he’s comfortable walking away and wandering through the door.

Louis is a vision, toasting naked in the sun except for a pair of wayfarers shielding his eyes. He rolls his head against the back of the lounger and extends his arm to where Harry is leaning against the door, cheeky grin following a long sip from the drink in his hand. 

“You,” he answers easily, as if it should be obvious. “I need you.”

“I’m making your dinner,” Harry informs him, shaking his head and refusing to budge. 

Things will burn if he moves, things like dinner on the stove and Louis’ body in the sun. Harry would quite like to preserve both, thanks.

Though he fakes a pout, Louis concedes. “After dinner?”

“Of course,” Harry answers easily, returning to the kitchen with a laugh.

In the slog of everyday life, Harry sometimes forgets what Louis is like when he’s completely unguarded and open. On tour, even when they’re alone, he wears an armor that protects him from the invasions he’s grown more and more accustomed to over time. 

Here, though, in the home they’ve purchased together, he’s the Louis that Harry fell in love with during that first week at the bungalow. He’s loud and ridiculous not as a diversionary tactic, but because he’s happy. He’s relaxed and loose-limbed and affectionate like he can’t be when there are eyes on them from every angle. Maybe it’s a bit dangerous to get so comfortable with the anonymity they’ve felt this week, but it feels so fucking good that Harry can’t be bothered to care if they do get caught, if the whole world knows what they’ve been up to here.

As promised, as soon as they’ve finished dinner, Harry lets Louis drag him into the lounge and spread him out on the thick rug he chose exactly for occasions such as this. They take their time - because they have it, time, for another day or so - exploring each other, finding new and interesting places to excite each other, and revisiting the spots they both know so well by now, taking each other apart until it feels like there’s nothing else in the world, just the sum of all their shared parts.

It’s easy, when they’re like this, to forget anyone and anything else exists. So it’s a bit jarring, when Harry’s tongue is half-buried in Louis’ ass, to hear him ask, “D’you know what Zayn is doing tomorrow?”

Harry has literally never cared less what Zayn is doing at any given time in history, and tells Louis as much, adding, “Even when I didn’t know him, I cared more about what he was doing than I do right now,” before he grips tighter to Louis’ ass, spreads it further apart, and licks another fat stripe over his hole.

“That doesn’t,” Louis starts to say, stopping only to grunt before he throws a glance over his shoulder, “Doesn’t even make sense.”

Meeting Louis’ eye, he mumbles, “You don’t make sense,” because he doesn’t. Harry is giving one hell of a rim job here, eating Louis’ ass like it’s better than the dessert he has chilling in the freezer, and Louis is trying to talk about bloody Zayn. Nothing makes sense.

“He’s proposing,” Louis says.

“Hm,” Harry hums against Louis’ skin, biting at the swell of Louis’ ass just to remind him that Harry is back here, as it seems Louis has forgotten. “Fascinating,” he intones, as added punctuation to how much he doesn’t care.

“I just don’t,” Louis starts, grunting again as he crawls forward, _away_ from Harry’s mouth, in the exact opposite direction of where Harry wants him. “I don’t see why he should be the first to be engaged,” Louis finally says, huffing a bit as he sits and crosses his arms like a petulant child.

While it angers Harry a bit, it mostly frustrates him. He’s very frustrated, sexually and emotionally and mentally and possibly spiritually. Also, he’s confused as to why Louis’ ass is no longer anywhere near him. 

“You really want to discuss this now?” he asks, raising an eyebrow and falling back to give his knees a bit of a break. “What has gotten into you? He’s mad about Perrie. They’ve been together for ages. You love her.”

“Of course I love her, don’t be an idiot,” Louis dismisses with a wave of his hand. “I just don’t see why he’s the first to propose.”

Harry gapes. “Louis,” he nearly shouts. “I have proposed to you so many times, I’ve lost count.”

Opening his mouth to protest, Louis seems to think better of it, stammering for a bit before he says, “He bought a ring.”

That’s it. That’s apparently what it takes to break Harry. 

“ _That’s_ what this is about? A bloody fucking ring? Jesus, Louis.”

On some level, he feels strange, being so angry over something so stupid. On another, he was halfway to getting off and now he’s arguing over something as facetious as jewelry. Louis is the most infuriatingly beautiful person he’s ever met.

With an unconcerned shrug, Louis says, “Makes it seem official is all.”

Though he wants to scream until his voice just gives out, maybe storm out of the room, Harry deflates and gives himself a moment to breathe before he speaks. Ending this perfect week with a fight seems silly, especially if it’s due to Harry saying something he didn’t think out ahead of time. That seems to be Louis’ default setting most of the time, speaking before he thinks, but Harry’s the opposite and he likes to think that’s what makes them work.

“Babe,” he starts, shaking his head to center himself again. “You know why people give each other rings, right?”

“Of course I do, Harry, I’m not an actual idiot,” Louis snaps.

“Alright,” he says slowly, slower than he usually says things, “then you know why I can’t give you one. The whole point is to make an outward show of a commitment that you’ve made to the person you love and you wouldn’t even be able to wear it most of the time.”

With a sigh, the fight visibly leaves Louis and he slinks back against the couch, looking smaller and more defeated than Harry has ever seen him. “It would just be nice, yeah?” he finally says wistfully. “To be able to show everyone.”

It would be. They do. Sometimes, it seems, Louis needs to be reminded.

Harry crawls to him on all fours, settling easily against Louis’ side until they’re pressed together, shoulder to hip. He drapes his arm over Louis’ and weaves their fingers together. “You wear me all the time,” he reminds Louis, raising his hand to kiss the compass tattooed to the inside of his arm. “And I wear you,” he adds, nodding to the places where all of their art lines up, where all the pieces of them are displayed for anyone who cares enough to look.

If there’s one thing Louis hates, it’s to be proven wrong, so he just sits and stares at their arms without conceding anything.

“And, I mean, if you really wanted to,” Harry says with a playful nudge of his shoulder, “you could always do the proposing. I mean, I don’t know why it always has to be me. I wear rings all the time. Wouldn’t kill you to buy me one, would it?”

As if he can’t help it, Louis laughs, turning his face to Harry’s and smiling brightly, genuinely. “I maybe already did,” he admits. “But I left it on the kitchen counter back in London.”

“So this entire thing is just you blaming me for your fuck up?” Harry asks lightly, squeezing Louis’ hand in his.

With a nonchalant shrug, Louis says, “I’ve been quite the little shit, Harold. Probably deserve a proper spanking for that, don’t I?”

“Probably,” Harry agrees, catching the way Louis’ voice dips lower even as he pulls away. “Should probably roll over and let me take care of that, shouldn’t you?”

Louis does as he’s told, which is a miracle in itself really, and rests his cheek against his folded arms while Harry runs a gentle hand down his spine. 

“Hey, Louis?” 

“Hm?”

“Make sure Zayn knows he’s not the first, yeah?”

Louis’ happy hum settles in Harry’s chest, feels like a secret yes to a question he’s been asking for years now.

**Pre- _Where We Are_ Tour**

Harry has performed in front of millions, on stage and telly and the internet, and he’s been ridiculously nervous before today. He’s just finished an arena tour, will embark on a fucking _stadium_ tour in a few months, and the nerves are nothing like this. The closest he’s come to this was writing that toast for his mother’s wedding, and even that pales in comparison.

The worst thing is that he doesn’t know _why_.

It’s just a few of their closest friends and families. The other lads are out there, waiting patiently in the back garden of this house that has been theirs for years now. Their mums and step dads and sisters are out there. It’s nothing but love surrounding this place, so there is no reason for Harry to feel like he’s going to throw up all over these stupidly expensive shoes Lou convinced him to buy for today.

Gemma’s already given him a pep talk - _he’ll love you even if you trip over your giant feet and faceplant in the aisle, ya donut_ \- so that was encouraging. His mum has hugged him and cried over him and fixed his lapel approximately thirty-eight times now. Jay’s done the same nearly twenty times.

Niall toasted him with whiskey out of an engraved flask at nine this morning. Liam hugged him so tightly, Harry thought his asthma might act up again. Zayn kissed his cheek, smacked his ass, and slipped a strip of condoms into the pocket of Harry’s trousers. 

Ed’s out there now, playing a song that he wrote just for them. It won’t be long now and, while he’s never been more excited, Harry doesn’t know why he’s so goddamn scared. His fingers are numb, for fuck’s sake. He hasn’t felt like this since before the first live shows at _The X Factor._

He jumps three feet in the air when a knock sounds on the tiny bathroom door he’s hidden himself away in to wait.

“What are you doing?” Louis asks, his voice conspiratorially low as his dart down one end of the hall and then the other.

“Hiding,” Harry admits with a self-deprecating laugh.

Stopping short, Louis pulls a face and asks, “From what?”

“Everything,” Harry admits, turning to face Louis fully.

He’s dressed in a well-fitted suit, the soft charcoal fabric contrasting his skin and his eyes perfectly. He’s wearing a tie, a fucking _tie_ , and he looks so dashing that Harry isn’t sure how he’s supposed to make it through without embarrassing himself.

Louis’ voice is small, vulnerable, when he asks, “D’you not want to do this?”

And Harry barks a laugh that he’s sure they can hear outside because, no, of all the things he’s scared of and worried about and nervous over, Louis does not make the list at all. 

“I’m fine,” he says, realizing just how sincerely he means it. He _is_ fine. Now that Louis is here, pulling him out of the toilet and smoothing his hands over Harry’s shoulders, he’s fine. “I think I just missed you,” he adds, feeling clunky and awkward even as he says the words.

That has to be it. He spent last night at the hotel with his family, allowing Louis’ to take over the house. There were more of them and it made sense at the time, but sleeping without Louis next to him threw Harry more than it should have. They’ve spent enough nights apart that he should be used to it by now, but this is not a normal circumstance.

“You won’t have to anymore, will you?” Louis asks, weaving his arms around Harry’s neck and letting Harry rest his hands on Louis’ hips. “Never again, until death do we part and all that, yeah?”

Never again. That settles Harry like nothing else has. 

He can hear the final strains of Ed’s song fading in the garden as he presses a kiss to the end of Harry’s nose. Another song is starting, an acoustic version of the traditional _Canon in D_ , when Harry asks, “Louis, will you marry me?” for what seems like the hundredth time in his life.

This time, Louis’ eyes crinkle in the corners when he smiles, pulling away to grip Harry’s hand tightly in his own. “Yes,” he says, definitive and sure. “Yes, I will marry you, Harry.”

“Because it rhymes?” Harry asks as Paul opens the door for them to walk this path together, in front of the people who matter the most to them. 

But Louis takes a beat to shake his head and ensure that Harry is looking back at him. “Because it’s the only thing that has made any sense to me since I met you.”

Perfect. So Harry is going to cry before the ceremony actually starts. It’s fine. Louis can make it up to him later, a million times if Harry wants him to. They’ve got forever, really.


End file.
